Boris Johnson should resign over Heathrow opposition, says senior Tory – Politics live
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Tonight, more than nine years after Gordon Brown’s government announced that it was going ahead with plans to build a third runway at Heathrow (Geoff Hoon was transport secretary at the time – remember him?), MPs will vote on whether the project should go ahead. The government is expected to win comfortably.
But one MP won’t be voting. Boris Johnson was a fierce opponent of the plan when he was London mayor, famously pledging to lie down in front of the bulldozers if necessary to block the project, but, like some other Johnson promises, this one has proved worthless. The foreign secretary won’ be following the government whip and voting for Heathrow expansion. But he won’t be voting against it either; he is taking advantage of a limited exemption from the whip granted to ministers with longstanding objections to the plan, and he will abstain by being conveniently away on some mystery foreign trip (we don’t know where yet).
I think this would be an opportunity for a colleague like Boris Johnson to actually put his money where his mouth is.
No one would expect him to do that, but they might expect him to use this as an opportunity and to resign on a point of principle in order to fulfil that election promise … We’ve seen a series of gaffes from Boris Johnson. I think many of us are wondering why in fact he has been allowed to stay so long.
Great to arrive back in the UK at Luton Airport in time for the match today and to vote against #Heathrow expansion tomorrow. I wouldn’t want to be abroad for either of those. #commitments.
Source: Guardian Transport
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